Respite for consumers as weekly inflation falls 8.11%

Essential items’ prices ease due to decline in SPI

ISLAMABAD:

The price of essential commodities witnessed a considerable decrease as the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), based on weekly inflation for the week ended on September 22, 2022, for the combined consumption group, witnessed a sharp decline of 8.11% as compared to the previous week.

The SPI for the week under review was recorded at 203.21 points against 221.14 points registered in the previous week, according to the latest data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) released on Friday.

The SPI for the combined consumption group in the week under review witnessed an increase of 29.28% as compared to the corresponding week of last year.

The weekly SPI, with the base year 2015-16 =100, is covering 17 urban centres and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups. The SPI for the lowest consumption group up to Rs17,732 witnessed a decrease of 8.45% and went down to 205.98 points from last week’s 224.98 points.

Meanwhile, the SPI for the consumption groups from Rs17,732-22,888; Rs22,889-29,517; Rs29,518-44,175 and above Rs44,175 decreased by 11.91%, 8.02%, 6.07% and 4.08% respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, the price of 26 (50.98%) items increased, 10 (19.61%) items decreased and 15 (29.41%) items remained stable. The items to record a decrease in average price week-on-week basis included tomatoes (8.15%), bananas (1.90%), garlic (1.31%), pulse masoor (0.99%), cooking oil 5 litre (0.78%), onions (0.46%), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (0.34%), vegetable ghee 1kg (0.06%), electricity for Q1 (64.23%) and LPG (3.82%).

The commodities having recorded an increase in average prices is wheat flour (22.47%), tea packet (6.42%), chicken (4.52%), pulse gram (2.54%), bread (2.36%), cigarettes (1.82%), rice basmati broken (1.51%), potatoes (1.45%), pulse moong (1.31%) and rice Irri 6/9 (1.07%).

On a year-on-year basis, the commodities witnessing a decrease in prices include electricity for Q1 (45.61%), chillies powder (43.05%), sugar (19.20%) and gur (3.37%). Whereas the commodities with an increase in prices year-on-year basis included tomatoes (117.55%), diesel (105.12%), petrol (91.87%), pulse masoor (75.38%), pulse gram (73.55%), mustard oil (65.64%), cooking oil 5 litre (63.63%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (56.09%), onions (50.83%) and LPG (49.89%).

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2022.

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